Exhibition

Ulysses' Dream

Villa Carmignac, Porquerolles Island

April 30, 2022 - October 16, 2022

This year, at the Fondation Carmignac, you will encounter Ulysses' Dream, an aesthetic and mythological adventure loosely inspired by Homer’s Odyssey.

Martial Raysse, Sans Titre, 1962 - ADAGP Paris 2022

The Odyssey is a book, a myth, a world.

This year, the Villa Carmignac will present an exhibition inspired by the Greek hero who sailed for ten years to return home after the Trojan War (The Iliad). Legend has it that Ulysses reached the shores of Porquerolles Island, where he fought and struck down the Alycastre, the monster sent by Poseidon and sculpted by the artist Miquel Barceló at the entrance of the Villa Carmignac.


On this wild Mediterranean island off the coast of Hyères in the South of France, where the light, sea, trees and caves are the same as in Homer’s time, gods and myths are still very much alive. The Odyssey continues to accompany us and to help us live, like some more contemporary works of art, which sometimes light our way.


Thanks to the intuition of this year’s guest curator, Francesco Stocchi, a curator at the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum and of the Swiss Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale, the Villa Carmignac will be transformed into a labyrinth for this exhibition. Is Ulysses’ decade-long journey of return, with its diversions, impasses and traps, not a labyrinthine journey drawn on the sea?


In a disorientating scenography of meandering corridors and crossings that multiply the possible circuits, you will be constantly faced with choices: take this path or turn their back on it, see one work and not another. You will have to navigate by avoiding the traps and illusions – mirrors, trompe-l’oeil and other tiny spaces – scattered along the way by the scenographer, Margherita Palli.


Unlike classical labyrinths, which are devoid of references, this one has the particularity of being populated by works of art. You will wander through the maze, making choices about which path to take and coming face to face with works depicting women and seduction, monsters and their terrifying potential, heroes, fabulous and divine beings, animals and more. Among these human and non-human figures, in the labyrinth, travellers may recognise a little of themselves, and discover the means with which to explore their own secrets.


The labyrinth, a physical and mental space par excellence, opens up to an introspective journey.

For Ulysses, it is a journey of the return to the self, as well as to his island; for the visitors, walking in his footsteps and forging new paths on this island, it is a contemporary and intimate odyssey.


Thanks to a partnership with the Port-Cros National Park, the exhibition continues this year in the Fort Saint-Agathe with Leandro Erlich’s cloud floating to a soundtrack by the Moriarty group.

PRACTICAL INFORMATIONS


30 March - 16 October

From Tuesday to Sunday (closed on Monday) from 10am to 6pm (last ticket sold at 4.00pm)
Nocturnals on Thursdays evenings from 30 June to 1 September (last access 7.00pm)

T : +33 4 65 65 25 50

Book now

ROY LICHTENSTEIN - Fishing Village - Fondation Carmignac


Following previous Villa Carmignac exhibitions, such as The Source and The Imaginary Sea, which allowed us to enter an underground or underwater world, Ulysses' Dream invites us to dive beneath the surface once again.

Some of the artworks presented in the exhibition

Vue de l'exposition
Vue de l'exposition
Cyprien Gaillard - Ammonite Dub, 2015
Cyprien Gaillard - Ammonite Dub, 2015
Adger COWANS - Icarus, 1970
Adger COWANS - Icarus, 1970
Marinus BOEZEM
Marinus BOEZEM
LE SONGE D'ULYSSE - Teaser de l'exposition

Artists

Micol Assaël
John Baldessari
Miquel Barceló
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Marinus Boezem
Louise Bourgeois
Mark Bradford
Francesco Clemente
Adger Cowans
Willem de Kooning
Niki de Saint Phalle
Olafur Eliasson
Haris Epaminonda
Leandro Erlich
Urs Fischer
Cyprien Gaillard
Douglas Gordon
Duane Hanson
Keith Haring
Camille Henrot
Jenny Holzer
Thomas Houseago
Rashid Johnson
William Kentridge
Yves Klein

Oliver Laric
Roy Lichtenstein
Adam McEwen
Tony Matelli
Janaina Mello Landini
Bruce Nauman
Marilène Oliver
Jorge Peris
Alessandro Piangiamore
Richard Prince
Benoît Pype
Carol Rama
Ann Ray
Man Ray
Martial Raysse
Odilon Redon
Gerhard Richter
James Rosenquist
Miguel Rothschild
Arcangelo Sassolino
Egon Schiele
Cindy Sherman
Günther Uecker
Willem Adriaan van Konijnenburg
Adrián Villar Rojas
Andy Warhol


THE EXHIBITION CATALOGUE


The eponymous catalogue, Ulysses’ Dream, offers a visual immersion into the exhibition’s labyrinth. Preface by Edouard and Charles Carmignac, followed by an introduction by Francesco Stocchi.

The catalogue contains a re-edition of a text by the Italian art critic and historian Achille Bonito Oliva, Labyrinthe, as well as two original essays, the first by the American art historian Paula Burleigh, Un voyage hors de l’ordinaire, and the second by the New Zealand architect Mark Wigley, L’architecture de la désorientation.

Each work in the exhibition appears in the order of an ideal circuit, accompanied by a quote by the artist. At the heart of the work is a labyrinthine notebook of in
situ exhibition views.

The catalogue is published by the Editions Dilecta.

Price : 35€


MARTIAL RAYSSE Faire et Défaire Pénélope that’s the rule, 1966 Eléments mobiles en plexiglas - 200 x 580 cm Collection Carmignac © Adagp, Paris, 2022
Artworks
MARTIAL RAYSSE
Sans Titre, 1962
Collection Carmignac © Adagp, Paris, 2022
ROY LICHTENSTEIN
Fishing Village, 1986
Oil and magma on canvas - H. 198,1 cm ; L. 304 cm
Collection Carmignac © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein New York / Adagp, Paris, 2022
MARTIAL RAYSSE
Faire et Défaire Pénélope that’s the rule, 1966
Mobile Plexiglas elements - 200 x 580 cm
Collection Carmignac © Adagp, Paris, 2022